Mary Jane Bush, a community advocate whose career helped to shape the public health landscapes of Bangor and Bucksport, died last week. She was 76.
Family and friends remembered Bush as a determined, caring and community-minded person who knew how to make things happen.
For decades, Bush devoted those qualities toward expanding health services and resources in an area of the state with an aging population, a changing economy and new substance abuse challenges. Her work and her philosophy brought results in Hancock and Penobscot counties that are still visible.
“She worked for justice, not just in our community but all over the state,” said the Rev. Linda Smith, a longtime friend who worked with Bush on numerous committees and boards in Bucksport.
Bush grew up in Baltimore and entered a Catholic convent as a young woman. It was there she met Sue Davis, another nun whom she would later marry, according to Davis’ niece, Eliza Alexander.
They left the convent together in the 1970s and were activists in the era’s peace movement, supporting environmental and social justice causes that remained important to them throughout their lives. The two came to Maine in the early 1980s to be near Davis’ family.
For the next 15 years, Bush served as the executive director of substance abuse treatment organization Wellspring, which also ran the Bangor Halfway House. She left in 1995 to go back to school for health planning.
Wellspring leadership described Bush several years later as “the person responsible for making Wellspring the vital community organization it is today.” Under her leadership, it added counselors, outpatient services and programs serving women for the first time.
She joined the Bucksport Bay Healthy Communities Coalition as a volunteer in 1997, two years after it started. Three years later, she became its health planning director.
Reflecting on her 2013 retirement in an interview with the Ellsworth American, she said her work in substance abuse recovery drew her to the coalition.
“I saw how one person could help another reach their goal,” she said. “Participants working together would reach their goals quicker than if they worked at it alone.”
One of her first projects there was helping create and implement a community health plan, which she told the BDN was unique at the time because it focused on local feedback from numerous committees and planned around Bucksport’s assets. The plan was informed by 140 volunteers across 10 committees looking at different sides of the town’s health needs. Bush also enjoyed working with people from different backgrounds to accomplish common goals, her niece said.
The coalition and its partners have since led numerous initiatives and projects, including early childhood education, substance abuse prevention, a diversion program for youths facing criminal charges, a meal program for older adults, a regional shuttle service, fitness programs, affordable home repair and support for seniors.
“She was such an active participant in the health and well-being of Bucksport,” said Mayor Paul Bissonnette. “I am thankful to have known Mary Jane.”
Today, the town has a community dental clinic, a health center, an active senior center, an affordable senior housing complex and a network of resources for older, low-income residents.
Bush was instrumental in developing all of them, according to Smith, who was the new minister of Elm Street Congregational Church when they met. She also had a gift for getting people to say “yes” to helping out; Smith herself was added to several local committees the same day she met Bush.
“To Mary Jane, no roadblock is meant to be unclimbed,” she said. “She did it with grace, she did it with respect … in the end she always got what she wanted, for the benefit of others. That’s a pretty good accomplishment for your life.”
She also had a unique philosophy that shaped the way Bucksport’s health institutions work, according to Smith: “If you want to get something done, go to the people. Don’t go top-down, go bottom-up. Ask people what they need and listen to them.”
Bush stayed active in retirement up until the last year of her life, Alexander said, including with efforts to help seniors prepare for aging.
Throughout her career she was active in substance use prevention organizations and received local and national awards, including recognition from the National Council on Alcohol and Drug Addictions and a legislative sentiment from the state of Maine for her work improving the health of Penobscot County residents.
Bush is survived by many nieces and nephews, extended family, friends and her wife Sue. A remembrance gathering will be held at the Alamoosook Lakeside Inn in Orland at 10 a.m. on March 1.